


The Morning After - Life Goes On

by Lyri



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Dawn was always around, Gen, POV Buffy Summers, POV First Person, Post-Prophecy Girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:20:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25735705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyri/pseuds/Lyri
Summary: It's the day after Buffy Summers died - the first time.And life has a way of rolling on.
Kudos: 14





	The Morning After - Life Goes On

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written BtVS fic in almost 15 years...actually, it may even be longer than that!!
> 
> So I apologise for how weak my jump back into this fandom has turned out!

I slept late the next day, because, duh, dying really takes it out of you. 

The sun was almost up by the time I got home. Mom was asleep on the couch – probably waiting up for me. I covered her with a blanket before I went to bed.

So, in reality, I've only had a few hours sleep – but I've survived on less.

There are already voices downstairs when I sit up in bed and I know I can't stay here much longer before someone comes to fetch me. I lean over the far side of the bed and take at peek at my temporary room-mate. He's dead to the world – like, _literally._

Angel insisted on walking me – and everyone else – home last night, and since I was the last stop, he didn't have time to get to his own home before the sun was up. Yeah, he could have taken the sewers, but after the night we had, I figured he deserved to hang around here for the day.

What's one more secret?

I leave Angel sleeping and get out of bed, pulling on a pair of sweatpants over my sleep shorts and wiggling my toes into some flip-flops. 

My eyes are drawn to my dress. 

I hung it on the door of my closet after I changed last night – this morning? – in the same place Mom hung it when she gave it to me. Except now it's filthy, covered in blood. And other _bits_ from The Master. And whatever disgusting water that was in the puddle I drown in.

And isn't that a sentence I never thought I'd think?

I'll have to sneak it out to the cleaners whenever I get a chance. Mom will want to put it away, save it. If we put it away now, it might rot.

Or come to life. In this town, you never know.

When I open my bedroom door, I can hear giggling and it makes me smile. As I head for the stairs, I feel weird. Not tired, but not fully rested either. In the upstairs hallway, I do a cartwheel, just because I can, because no one's watching. I also kinda wanna do a backflip down the stairs, but I don't need the questions.

Instead, I make due with jumping the last five steps, landing silently, even in my flip-flops. I get a burst of satisfaction. I might hate being what I am, but I can't deny that I love what I can do.

As I round the corner into the kitchen, I see Mom standing at the end of the kitchen island, coffee cup in hand, a huge smile on her face, as she watches my baby sister shove pancakes into her mouth like she's afraid someone's going to take them away from her if she doesn't finish quickly enough.

“Morning, sleepy head,” Mom says when she spots me. Dawn looks up and grins, and I notice that she's got syrup dripping down her chin. It makes me laugh; there's something so naïve and innocent about it. Something I haven't been for a long time.

I kiss Mom's cheek before I cross to the other side of the island and press a kiss to the top of Dawn's head.

“Happy Birthday, Dawnie!”

She gives me a huge, sticky smile, and I chuckle, reaching for a napkin to wipe her chin. “Messy pup.”

Dawn giggles, the way she always does when one of us does something like this. She loves to be taken care of.

I turn to the fridge and open the door. I can feel Dawn's eyes on me as I reach to the back of one of the shelves and the bread bag I've hidden there. Her nose scrunches up when I bring it out, but she smiles brightly when I pull out the chocolate cake I've carefully hidden inside the bag.

It's not much, just one of those tiny little personal cakes. I had her name put on top, and a little sun in the corner, because I'm cheesy like that.

It looks pathetic when I set on the island next to her plate, but it's something. I know Mom got her a few gifts, and I got her a Backstreet Boys t-shirt and a necklace with her name on it. 

It's not much, but a teenage vampire Slayer doesn't exactly bring in the big bucks. I wanted to give her a broad sword or a dagger, or a stake, at least, but Giles wouldn't let me have any.

We'll give Dawn her gifts later, during dinner, where Mom will go all out. It's her thing, our birthday dinners. She'll cook Dawnie all her favorite food and we'll wear party hats and try to distract Dawn from the fact that Dad forgot her birthday. Again. He'll call in a few days, grovel, talk about what we'll do when we go visit him in L.A. this summer and Dawn will forget all about it. Just like she did last year.

For her first birthday in Sunnydale, Mom asked Dawn if she wanted to invite some friends for her big birthday dinner, but Dawn turned her down. After the move and everything that happened back in L.A., Dawn hasn't really found her place at her new school yet. She has friends, obviously, because she's my amazing baby sister, but no one that she wants to invite for a sleepover or a birthday dinner. So Mom asked me if I wanted to invite Xander and Willow, so that it wasn't just the three of us.

And since Xander is pretty much her favorite person in the world right now, Dawn seems more than happy with the arrangement.

Cordelia is also tagging along, apparently. Whether or not she stays for dinner is still up in the air. But, as we were walking home last night – this morning – she demanded actual answers. Willow regaled us with the story of Cordelia actually sinking her own teeth into a vampire – which is something even _I_ haven't done. I suppose, after everything, she deserves to know the truth. All of it.

Giles is going to turn such a funny color when he finds out. 

Mom has started on my own stack of Dawn's Birthday Pancakes, patent pending, while I was dealing with the girl of the hour, and there are two huge ones sitting on my plate in front of the seat next to my sister.

I reach for the syrup as Mom turns back to the stove and I notice that Dawn is staring at her cake, a dopey smile on her face.

“Aren't you gonna eat it?” I ask. She seems to be finished with her pancakes.

“I'm gonna save it for dinner,” she says and she turns to put it back into the fridge.

I smile at the twinkle in her eye. She's going to share it with Xander.

Good thing Mom brought cupcakes for the rest of us lesser people.

As I tuck into my pancakes, I can't help but feel...not normal.

I died last night, actual death. If it hadn't been for Xander, I wouldn't be sitting here right now, giving Dawn her birthday cake, watching as she and Mom talking about what we're going to have for dinner tonight. Dawn wants lasagne and also Chicken Parm and hotdogs, and Mom is trying desperately to curb the menu.

There was a chance, a very real one, that they could have been mourning me right now. That Dawn could have found out on her birthday that she was never going to see her big sister again. 

It's a weird knowledge to have, but the reality is, one day, they really are going to get that knock at the door. Giles, or maybe even Angel, will come to the house and tell them that I was killed in some sort of accident. Kidnapped by gang members on PCP, a car crash where the actual cause of death was extreme blood loss. They'll have to make up some sort of story to cover for the demon or vampire that ended this Slayer's run and ushered in the next girl in line.

My fingers touch the mark on my neck that The Master's fangs have left. Giles noticed last night that I wasn't healing as fast as I normally would and he thinks it's because Fruit-Punch Mouth was old as dirt and I'm left wondering if the mark will stay for good, if I'll have to come up with another lie to tell my family.

Dawn asks me how the dance was, pulling me out of my melancholy and I smile at her, partially in thanks.

“Yes,” Mom says, mild reproach in her voice, “I didn't hear you come in last night.”

I blush, and it's not even fake, as I think about tip-toeing Angel past the living room, and the fact that he's still asleep upstairs.

“The dance was great,” I say, because it was, the little we actually attended. “We ended up going back to Cordelia's actually. Her parents made us some food because the buffet was...” I grimace. “I'm not sure everything was dead, actually.”

That makes Dawn laugh, and, at the end of the day, that's kinda what I'm living for.

That, and saving the world.


End file.
